Category Archives: Quilting

June 14, 2013 · 8:31 pm

Trapezoids in Space – a finished quilt

I’ve been trying to come up with a quilt utilizing some of the Constellations fabric line (by Lizzy House – available here), and these glorious “Grumpy Moon” screen prints made by my friend and fellow Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild member Amy!

This design is the same concept as my “Trapezoids at Work” quilt and I even have a tutorial posted over HERE.

Thanks, AMY! For these stunning moons! Perfect for a grumpy toddler…

This quilt will soon make it’s home in Wisconsin with my sister’s family. We’re all eagerly awaiting the birth of my first nephew!

1 Comment

Filed under A2MQG, Fabric, Quilting, Supplies, Tutorial

May 24, 2013 · 8:10 pm

Positive Addition

A friend-of-the-family is having a baby! The couple are both very mathematically inclined, modern, and cool. They are expecting a baby girl, but aren’t interested in over-the-top-girly-goo-goo-gaa-gaa things.

After seeing Debbie’s quilt and this one from Film in the Fridge, I decided to make this plus block blanket. Assorted greys, whites, and a bit of pink work for the background, and the pluses are primarily orange, teal, blue, or pink. I really love how this turned out!

And for the back? My mother-in-law asked if I’d be able to find Pi symbol fabric for these engineers. Of course! I framed a yard of the Pi fabric with green and a splash of orange. The binding is a teensy bit scrappy, with grey and pink and orange.

Thanks for stopping by!

7 Comments

Filed under Inspiration, Quilting

May 15, 2013 · 5:50 pm

Madrona Road Challenge: Gear and Spark

The Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild is participating in the Michael Miller Madrona Road Challenge. Participants made complete quilts with a perimeter of at least 120″, using fabrics from the Madrona Road line by Violet Craft, and complementing them with Michael Miller Cotton Couture Solids.

Here’s my entry! A bias-tape, machine-appliquéd design representing a gentle, loopy gear:

The quilting represents the spark with free-motion star shapes.

It all started off with this doodle:

I used a bias-tape applique method.

Check out the rest of the amazing entries from the A2MQG HERE.

6 Comments

Filed under A2MQG, Challenges, Fabric, Quilting

April 17, 2013 · 5:27 pm

Back-to-Front Binding Tutorial

One alternative to making traditional binding is to make a quilt-back big enough to fold over to the front of the quilt and sew in place. That’s right, you can use the backing for the binding! I’ve had a tutorial for this process up on the blog – it was one of my very first posts back in 2010! But that tutorial needed some updates – here we go!

Continue reading →

30 Comments

Filed under Quilting, Techniques, Tutorial

Tagged as binding, inding, quilting, sewing, tutorial

April 9, 2013 · 9:13 pm

Outdoor Archicoop Pictures

Just taking a second to post some nicer pics of the Archicoop quilt. Now that it isn’t negative 2 trillion degrees, I am getting outdoors and getting better photographs.

6 Comments

Filed under Quilting

April 8, 2013 · 4:04 am

Lynn’s Atomic Pinwheels

When Lynn showed us her quilts made from her newly released pattern, Atomic Pinwheels, I knew I’d like to try this design myself! So I volunteered to be one of the pattern testers and gave it a whirl.

This design features a really cool piecing method where you do partial seams and really build the entire quilt top quite fast!

And as for the curved piecing – I can always use the practice. The inner quarter circle pieces were quick and easy to piece into the arches. Getting the arch units to go into the larger rectangles took a lot of pins and patience for me, as I’m still learning.

When it came time to quilt I wanted to pick a design that highlighted the movement of the pinwheels and the details of the circles within the blue patterned fabric.

Thanks, Lynn, for giving me the chance to try out this excellent pattern!

3 Comments

Filed under Pattern, Quilting

April 2, 2013 · 7:10 pm

Trapezoids at Work – Finished Quilt!

Trapezoids at work! Quilted and bound…

I did a tutorial for this quilt when I finished piecing the top. It can be found HERE.

I wanted the “columns” of trapezoids to alternate between Business Fabric (texty prints, grids, organized dot prints, a lot of Architextures) and neutral solids, with a couple of color splashes for fun.

The inspiration was how my mind floats around while I work. There are periods of focus and periods of distraction, dreaming, spacing-out… You know how it goes!

I carried that idea into the quilting. Dense linear quilting for the WORK areas, and floaty circular quilting for the dreaming spaces.

A couple of rings of pebbles as a nod to the pearl bracelets fabric that makes an appearance in this quilt…

Happy little dreamy scallops…

The backing fabric is a 108″ wide Spot On Wide Circle in Steel. Pink castle fabrics has a bunch of different colors from this line – very handy!

The binding is Paper Clips in Gray from the Type line…

I hope ya’ll like it! I love it when a plan comes together – this is really exactly how I wanted this guy to look and everything turned out! Happy claps!!

14 Comments

Filed under Fabric, Quilting

February 27, 2013 · 9:23 pm

Archicoop! Finished Quilt

I finished my quilt!

I quilted diagonal lines about 2.5″ apart to convey chicken-wire for my little coop. The quilt-front is exclusively made out all the fabrics from Architextures by Carolyn Friedlander.

For more information about the piecing of the quilt top – check out this previous post.

The backing fabric features the cross-hatched black and white print from Summersville by Lucie Summers for Moda. The quilt is bounded in a solid royal-blue fabric, hand-stitched.

Each block finishes to 7.5″ square. The quilt is about 53″ x 60″ – big enough to wrap around my shoulders.

And that’s just what I’m going to do with this quilt! Wrap up in it every day. I work from home early early early in the morning, but cuddling with this quilt in my office will make it all not seem so bad.

Fun little label.

2 Comments

Filed under Fabric, Quilting

February 18, 2013 · 11:22 pm

Quilting an Owl Blanket

I didn’t get the best pictures of this project, but a friend of a friend hired me to quilt this adorable owl blanket…

And I just wanted to share a close-up of these adorable hand-embroidered birds.

The background fabric is a fleece that is so comfy and soft. The border fabric is the same as the backing and looks like a vintage sheet, but could be a recent purchase – I’m not sure.

I did loopy swirls and some detailing in the border. Very cute blanket.